Iraq

Sciencedaily.com(Aug. 23, 2009) — In a study published in the most recent issue of
the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research
institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential
election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that
Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Although this belief influenced the 2004 election, they claim it did not result
from pro-Bush propaganda, but from an urgent need by many Americans to seek
justification for a war already in progress.

The findings may illuminate reasons why some people form false beliefs about
the pros and cons of health-care reform or regarding President Obama’s citizenship,
for example.

The study, "There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification"
calls such unsubstantiated beliefs "a serious challenge to democratic theory
and practice" and considers how and why it was maintained by so many voters
for so long in the absence of supporting evidence.

Co-author Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of sociology
at the University at Buffalo, says, "Our data shows substantial support
for a cognitive theory known as ‘motivated reasoning,’ which suggests that rather
than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a
particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they
already believe.

"In fact," he says, "for the most part people completely ignore
contrary information.

"The study demonstrates voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations
based on faulty information," he explains.

While numerous scholars have blamed a campaign of false information and innuendo
from the Bush administration, this study argues that the primary cause of misperception
in the 9/11-Saddam Hussein case was not the presence or absence of accurate
data but a respondent’s desire to believe in particular kinds of information.…

The release of the long-anticipated CIA report, quashed since 2006 by the Bush regime, and then postponed several times by the Obama administration, is set for Monday August 24. It’s been leaked. Newsweek and the Guardian UK, “Bombshell report on CIA interrogations is leaked” report the CIA used mock executions to terrorize detainees through threatening the use of pistols and electric drills.

It’s reported that the Attorney General will make a decision in the next few days on whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture. The New York Timesanalyzed the problem Eric Holder is up against, having been instructed by Barack Obama not to look “backward” while saying “we do not torture”:

“Mr. Holder has told associates he is weighing a narrow investigation, focusing only on C.I.A. interrogators and contract employees who clearly crossed the line and violated the Bush administration’s guidelines and engaged in flagrantly abusive acts. But in taking that route, Mr. Holder would run two risks. One is the political fallout if only a handful of low-level agents are prosecuted for what many critics see as a pattern of excess condoned at the top of the government. The other is that an aggressive prosecutor would not stop at the bottom, but would work up the chain of command, and end up with a full-blown criminal inquiry into the intelligence agencies – just the kind of broad, open-ended criminal… Continue reading →

As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches once again it leads us to reflect on
what we have achieved and what is yet to be achieved by the 9/11 Truth and Justice
Campaign. One thing we all might agree on is that a more “focused”
and “deliberate” media campaign is in order this anniversary.

In this last year we have received some very powerful tools to use in our battle
against those who would see us fade away as a movement. The most powerful is
arguably the "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from 9/11 World
Trade Center Catastrophe" paper provided, peer reviewed and published by
our hard working scholars internationally. While this world-changing evidence
has received press in parts of Europe and Asia, it has not been reported on
within the corporate media of the “Coalition of the willing”, being
predominantly the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. It is important
to note these countries are also the major supporters of the “War on Terror”
having direct military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan to this day.

What I propose is an all out, all day attempt to get this controversial paper
reported on in the press by demonstrating in front of corporate media facilities
worldwide. With simply the “Thermitic Materials Paper” in one hand
and Architects and Engineers DVD “9/11 Blueprint for Truth” in the
other we have a completely rational and non-conspiratorial basis to demand that
the press… Continue reading →

” In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” Dwight David Eisenhower, “Military-Industrial Complex Speech,” 1961, 1

” My observation is that the impact of national elections on the business climate for SAIC has been minimal. The emphasis on where federal spending occurs usually shifts, but total federal spending never decreases. SAIC has always continued to grow despite changes in the political leadership in Washington.” Former SAIC manager, quoted in Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, “Washington”s $8 Billion Shadow.” Vanity Fair, March 2007 2

The Myth of the Grand Chessboard: Geopolitics and Imperial Folie de Grandeur

In The Road to 9/11 I summarized the dialectic of open societies: how from their energy they expand, leading to a higher level of more secretive corporations and agencies, which eventually weaken the home country through needless and crushing wars. 4 I am not alone in seeing America in the final stages of this… Continue reading →

CIA director and Democratic appointee Leon Panetta, in an article published
Sunday, said Democrats must recognize the “reality” of 9/11 is what drove the
conduct of George W. Bush administration in the months following September 11,
2001, which somehow justifies not looking into suspected crimes.

He added, in an apparent warning to the House Intelligence Committee, that
that “focusing on the past” could hurt the CIA’s core mission
amid a climate of recriminations over its practices.

“I’ve become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past,
especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core
missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action,” Panetta
opined in the online edition of The Washington Post.

“In our democracy, effective congressional oversight of intelligence
is important, but it depends as much on consensus as it does on secrecy,”
he continued. “We need broad agreement between the executive and legislative
branches on what our intelligence organizations do and why. For much of our
history, we have had that. Over the past eight years, on specific issues —
including the detention and interrogation of terrorists — the consensus
deteriorated. That contributed to an atmosphere of declining trust, growing
frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information.”

Several paragraphs later, he appears to offer a blanket excuse for torture,
CIA black sites, kidnapping, indefinite detention, the invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan and warrantless spying, among a litany of other notable scandals.

The corporate media in the United States are ignoring valid news stories, based on university quality research. It appears that certain topics are simply forbidden inside the mainstream corporate media today. To openly cover these news stories would stir up questions regarding “inconvenient truths” that many in the US power structure want to avoid.

For example, current research indicates that public schools in the United States are more segregated today than they have been in more than four decades. According to a new Civil Rights report, published at the University of California, Los Angeles, schools in the US are 44 percent non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students in the US. Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years ago. Millions of non-white students are locked into “dropout factory” high schools, where huge percentages do not graduate. The most severe segregation in public schools occurs in the Western states, including California–not in the South, as many people believe. Most non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. Schools in low-income communities remain highly unequal in terms of funding, qualified teachers, and curriculum.

Other taboo stories include civilian death rates in Iraq and questions on 9/11. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and a professional survey company in Great Britain, Opinion Research Business (ORB) report that the United States is directly responsible for over one million Iraqi… Continue reading →

Sibel Edmonds (If you’re not already famliar with Sibel, read more about her here )

I am pleased to announce the launch of my Podcast show, ‘The Boiling Frogs.’ This site will present two in-depth interviews per month, one-hour each, with well-respected and controversial guests. My guest list will include:

…and maybe even a few guests from the other side whom we have bashed. You can listen to the show on this site and discuss your take and views in the comments section.

I am thrilled to have Peter B. Collins as my co-host for this project. Knowing that I have been giving interviews, not the other way around, I needed a partner to collaborate with; someone who is a solid and experienced radio host, who is very good at interviewing, who is very knowledgeable, and who I respect and trust. Lucky me, I found one, and he has accepted this partnership. I am honored to have Peter as my co-host and partner. Peter’s show was one of the first radio interviews I gave years ago, and over the years he had me back many times. He has always ranked at the very top of my radio show… Continue reading →

Editor’s Note:
This excellent newsletter is sent by the team at WantToKnow.info. Here is the latest. Subscription information is at the end.

Dear friends,

Below are key excerpts of important news articles you may have missed. These articles include revealing information on US government plans to launch swine flu vaccinations in the fall, a report of widespread torture at the US secret prison at Bagram, Afghanistan, revelations that weapons inspector David Kelly’s mysterious death may have been related to his intention to expose a worldwide black market in weaponized anthrax, and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here. The most important sentences are highlighted for those with limited time. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can and will build a brighter future.

With best wishes,
Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team

Important Note: We’ve been hit hard by the ecomonic downturn. Donations this year are less than half what they were at this time last year. We would deeply appreciate support from any of you that can afford it. To help further this work, please click here.

Last month, police and the FBI arrested four Newburgh men on charges that they had plotted to bomb synagogues in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx and fire a missile at a military jet.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly held press conferences at the synagogues to reassure New Yorkers about their safety. During Kelly’s remarks, it was startling to hear the commissioner refer to al-Qaeda by name, if only to say that the four purported home-grown terrorists had no ties to Osama Bin Laden’s organization.

As more details emerged, however, the less the four defendants sounded like men with the skills to plan a sophisticated terror plot. They were small-time crooks, felons with long criminal records whose previous activities revolved around smoking marijuana and playing video games. One defendant, Laguerre Payen, was arrested in a crack house surrounded by bottles of his own urine; his lawyer describes him as “mildly retarded.”

It seemed fairly astounding that, for a full calendar year, such a group could remain interested in and plan anything more complex than a backyard barbecue, let alone a multipronged paramilitary assault, as the indictment against them alleged.

But what the indictment didn’t say, and what the initial news reports didn’t fill in, was the extent to which the fifth man in the plot, an unnamed FBI informant, had provided the glue to hold the Newburgh 4 together.

British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an expose about his work with anthrax and his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction at the time of his death in July 2003, according to a report published in a British newspaper.

Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.

The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.

“He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets,” the UK Daily Express alleged.

Kelly’s computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain’s Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.

According to the paper, “he was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of… Continue reading →

CIA analyst Michael Scheuer’s recent call for bin Laden to kill more Americans would be shocking if we hadn’t already heard it dozens of times before from other “War on Terror” advocates. “It’s an absurd situation,” Scheuer told FOX News personality Glenn Beck on his program last week. “Only Osama can execute an attack that will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.”

The comments have provoked much shock and outrage among pundits and websites like Jon Stewart and NewsHounds who may have considered him to be on their side. After all, he seemed to be a vociferous and effective critic of the neocons, having authored books like Imperial Hubris and having supported Ron Paul during the 2008 Presidential debates by asserting that 9/11 was merely blowback for American interventionism in the Middle East. With his latest comments, Scheuer is now relegated to the ignoble company of neocon shills like Stu Bykofsky of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who dreamed of another terrorist attack back in 2007 to rally people around the flag (and, presumably, George W. Bush) once again; Donald Rumsfeld, who complained in 2006 that the Bush regime was a victim of its own success in the “War on Terror” and that another terrorist attack was needed to remind people that the war was still necessary; and… Continue reading →

In his remarkable speech at Cairo University on June 4, President Obama promised “a new beginning.” In the words of the Israeli commentator Uri Avnery, the speech offered “the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language — a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatism.”1

Much of what Obama had to say was new, and warmed the hearts of observers like myself, who had become increasingly concerned about the new president’s fidelity to the financial and military policies of the previous Bush-Cheney administration. But while Obama broke new ground on Israel-Palestine issues, he glossed over troubling issues pertaining to the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also glossed over one of the fundamental issues alienating the Muslim world: America’s relentless efforts to preserve its threatened financial status by moves to dominate the region’s oil resources. Here his careful ambiguity was ominously reminiscent of the Bush era.

The speech reaffirmed a complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2012, as the U.S. committed itself to do in a signed agreement last December. In addition Obama asserted that “we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan… We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan.”

It’s late spring 2009 in New York City and an unannounced unidentified U.S. government plane streaks across town. Recollecting the horrors of 9/11, the incident scares the he-be-gee-bees out of the citizenry. Some miles to the north, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D/NY), while attending an April 18th “Tour of the Battenkill” annual bicycle race in Cambridge, New York, responds to a question regarding efforts here in New York City to establish a new investigation of 9/11. Lending his qualified support to such an inquiry, he said that he was positively disposed toward a new investigation into the events of 9/11, though his support for such a probe would depend on the form it would take. “I think it’s not a bad idea,” he said. “You know, you’ve got to do it in a good way, but yes, I’d be for it.”

An associate of Schumer, New York State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, also recommended a fresh look at the events of September 11, 2001. Commenting this past May 27th to a young reporter who himself had suffered the loss of a loved one during 9/11, the senator responded to the question of a new investigation by suggesting that “another review, or a fuller hearing” is warranted given the number of unanswered questions put forward by victims families since 9/11. “I think those questions should be answered,” she stated, going on to affirm that, “it’s important that every family member have every question answered.”

Thanks to a recent appearance at the National Press Club, Dick Cheney blamed
Richard Clarke for leaving the nation vulnerable to attack ahead of 9/11 saying,
“He obviously missed it.” Cheney was referring to the threat from
al Qaeda which Clarke had emphatically
warned the administration about several times before the fall of 2001.

Jon Stewart was not pleased with Dick Cheney for these accusations, nor the
members of the National Press Club who failed to challenge him about the assertion.
In a segment called “Dick Uncut,” Stewart used dark humor to take
both the former Vice President and the media to task for the events leading
up to 9/11 through the waterboarding of detainees. It simultaneously makes you
laugh and want to punch a whole through the wall.

Writing in Sunday’s Washington Post, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism
chief under Presidents Clinton and Bush, slammed Dick Cheney and Condoleezza
Rice for invoking what he called “the White House 9/11 trauma defense”
— namely, the shock of 9/11 was so great as to justify all and any actions
taken in the name of national defense. Clarke called the decisions on interrogations,
detentions, and Iraq were all “wrong,” and the White House panic
proved that Cheney and company had simply been ignoring the warning signs:

Cheney’s admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to
the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings
from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a
major al-Qaeda attack.

“On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that,” he told the Fox host. “There was “some reporting early on … but that was never borne out… [President] George [Bush] … did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11.”

And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement “judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time”, is the statement “Hard to get a good case.” In other words, top officials knew that there wasn’t a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is usually very careful at choosing his words.

Perhaps not so today. In a speech Monday at the National Press Club, continuing along familiar themes of terrorism, Guantánamo and his hatred for The New York Times, Cheney spoke defensively of the administration’s practice of water-boarding detainees.

“I don’t believe we tortured,” Cheney remarked, noting that the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration were vetted by White House lawyers. They didn’t cross a “red line,” he said.

And then he delivered the whopper: “There were three people who were water-boarded…. It was well-done.”

The former vice president also made an odd comment about detainees being held at Guantánamo Bay.

He framed their detention as a choice between two options: either we imprison them, or we kill them.

“We need Guantánamo… If we didn’t have it, we’d need to (invent) it,” Cheney remarked. “If you don’t have a place to hold these people, the only other option is to kill them.”

“We don’t operate that way,” he added.

Cheney’s comments were transcribed by The Swamp, the blog of the Chicago Tribune.

“If I had it to do all over again, I would do exactly the same thing,” he continued. “I don’t have much tolerance or patience for those who have the benefit of hindsight eight years later and have forgotten what happened on 9/11….…

We’re writing with updates on some recent happenings, and a few highlights of what’s been posted at 911truth.org in the last month. If you haven’t checked the site lately, you’ll find a lot of important material.

ACTIONS

9/11 Truth Groups continue their work with amazing persistence and dedication all over the world. A list of contacts for many groups can be found at our Grassroots Organizers page. Not all have a group meeting, but are willing to be contacts to get more going in their area. If you are interested in being listed as a contact for your area, click here .

TruthAction.org continues the lead in helping organize and report on 11th of Every Month Actions, and we encourage you to get linked up there if you are (or would like to) organize or participate in these. Then, don’t forget to post them on our Calendar so we can help promote.

Our Calendar provides access to details of events posted by organizers. We know there are many more events happening than are currently listed–we’ve set it up so that anyone can post their own events, with as much information as possible, so please feel free to utilize that calendar.

NYC CAN: The NYC Coalition for Accountability Now continues to make great strides in gathering enough petition signatures to place an initiative for a new and independent 9/11 investigation on the ballot for the November, 2009 city elections. This week they announced having gathered over 40,000 signatures!…